Keeving progress

[Tony Lovering]

Hi

Ive had the keeving jars outside for the last 10 days and the cap has just started to move. See pics. I was going to leave it a day or so to see what happens to the cap. Any advice?

It was a bit cold last night to kept the containers under wraps and at about 3 deg C. 

Cheers

[CiderSupply.com]

Those keeves are looking pretty good. The other two arnt far behind. Youll probably want to get some good compression out of the caps. So without mooving the containers you will want to try and maintain the temprature on the cooler side to slow the developing fermentation down and provide more time for compression. However, its time for babysitting really keep an eye on cap thickness because as it compresses it will loose bouancy and at some point and quickly sink. If the tempratures raise is too warm, the fermentation will grow exponentially and blow the caps apart so watch for increase in cap foaming.

If you suspect that either scenario is beginning to occur, RACK!

Best regards
Chris Rylands

[Tony Lovering]

Has anybody ever tried to reform the cap? I thought I would experiment and I have stirred up the left container breaking everything up again and adding more PME and calcium chloride. Lets see what happens

Cheers

[CiderSupply.com]

Is there a reason why you want to reform a cap? Typically it won't work because the lag time where keeving occured will not exist second time around. You may break up the cap and blend it into the juice, but the yeast population is still there at a high level and generally go into active ferment faster then any hope of a cap reforming. You could sulfite the juice a bit to knock back the yeast population, but i don't think that a decent cap would ever reform also because the bonds have already been made and adding more PME and/or CaCl2 will form the chains again. Andrew or Claude i imagine could really yay or nay that statement.

However, what you are doing is not the same as racking after a keeve and waiting for another smaller cap to form. In a sence, in this case the juice has renewed lag time because the bulk of yeast and nutrients are left behind and any residual unbonded molicules can have a second (but shorter) lag time to form a secondary cap.

Best regards
Chris Rylands

[Tony Lovering]

Hi

I think its a bit cold for the fermentation to take place. The cap has reformed but less irregular than before and settled to the bottom. I am trying to apply some warmth to speed up the process. I didnt know what would happen after stirring everything up and adding PME again. So now I know! Ive taken some fermenting cider from another container and added about 250ml to the bottom of 2 of the keeving ones in a hope tospeed things up. The amb tem has been at freezing and below for 3-4 days so things are progressing very slowly. I'll take another pick when something happens

Cheers

[CiderSupply.com]

Yes those are cold temps. You're Pioneering onward, will look forward to photos and any discoveries. Thats the fun part of cidermaking - experimenting -

On a side note, some years ago i put up a form of a visual keeving troubleshooting guide at

http://cidersupply.com/Page%20-%20Good-Bad-Ugly.html

Best regards
Chris Rylands

[Tony Lovering]

Thanks for the pics

When you said you salvaged the juice what do you mean? Did you siphon off the clear from the top or mix it all up and then just ferment the lot? One of mine looks like No 3 and 11 and the others the cap isn't rising but I have decieded to wait a while and see what happens. Can I just siphon off the juice from the top? Will it still be nutrient poor and ferment with residual sugar?

Thanks for the input

[Tony Lovering]

I checked them this morning and they were looking decidedly dodgy so cut my losses and recovered 6 galls. I mixed the rest up and put them in the shed under airlock to ferment naturally. I still have 2 more looking good so hope I can get a total of 10-12 galls plus the 2 from last experiment.

we have another pressing next week so maybe I'll try another couple of containers. The apples are not the best for keeving but will give it a go anyway

Cheers

[CiderSupply.com]

From my recollection, and what some of the keeving kit customers said, it was an even split. Some racked, some remixed and added yeast. If the cap had mold on it and it sank, then it was a loss.

Best regards
Chris Rylands

[Tony Lovering]

The last 2 were really good. I got 12 gallons from all the containers in the end, slightly more than expected. Its fermenting slowly now and I'll check the progress in a month or so. 

I am going to experiment with nitrogen lift next year in larger containers. It might be a bit ore reliable than the static method

Cheers

[cidersupply.com]

I think that the nitrogen process is the most popular in France now.

Best Regards

Chris Rylands 

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[Tony Lovering]

I dont know much about the process, I cant find any resources. I was going to get a large round see through tank and install some micro bubble ceramic defuses from an aquarium in the bottom. When the gel forms bubble the nitrogen and try to lift the gel. Does that sound about right? I was wondering what sort of flowrate for the N2. Very low obviously

Cheers

[Claude Jolicoeur]

Le vendredi 2 décembre 2016 12:13:42 UTC-5, CiderSupply.com a écrit :

I think that the nitrogen process is the most popular in France now.

For my part, I haven't seen this much. Actually, only once...
More often (as far as I have seen), producers who stop making the chapeau brun will instead make a complete enzymatic depectinisation (sometimes with also addition of a fining agent), and after that they do an early first racking complemented by filtering or centrifugation to reduce further the yeast biomass.
The depectinisation and clarification before fermentation is important, otherwise they would have difficulty with the filter...
Those that use a filter mostly use the earth filter rather than plate filter.
Claude

[CiderSupply.com]

Thanks for the correction Claude. My mistake. I remember the discussion once on the list long ago and maybe it was the next most common method for smaller cidermakers or something. I will have to dig and see why i was thinking that.

Best regards
Chris Rylands

[Tony Lovering]

After racking off the juice I left the containers overnight and this morning the cap was fully formed in both and compact. I have another 2-3 gallons to recover!

I jumped the gun a bit but still managed to get the max keeved juice in the end

Cheers 

[CiderSupply.com]

How much compression did you get out of the caps

[Tony Lovering]

Pretty good. The complete caps was about 40mm thick.

Cheers

[nick....@gmail.com]

Hi,

Apologies if I'm hijacking the thread here, hopefully not as it's still the same theme.

I've tried my 1st keeve this year in a few different batches and just looking for a bit of a second opinion.

I have attached photos keeve 1 is all the same batch of apples but in various containers.

What I'm particularly interested in is the cap formed quite well for Keeve 1 and was quite thick before I pumped the juice out, the tank then got looked like some type of fermentation white foam and on looking today the foam has cleared and there is a reasonable about of bubbling going on, but what also seems to be more pectin gathering at the surface.

Is this normal and should I rack the juice off again at this point?

the other photos all show similar caps. but there is quite a variation between then.

How do you know when it is the correct time to pump the juice out from under that cap/ when the caps is about to start breaking up?

Or do you just wait until a good cap has formed and the pump the juice out?

Thanks

Nick

Circle Cider

Wiltshire

[jillm...@googlemail.com]

Can I also jump in on the bandwagon?

I have tried keeving for the first time - old orchard, old Devon cider apples. High tannin and lots of bitter sweets. We crushed apples on Nov 18th, pressed on 19th. Amazing thick brown gloopy juice. SG 1060. 60 litres into 2x 30litre barrels with airlocks. The weather was cold. A cap formed quickly but it seems that almost the whole barrel was jelled. 

A week ago (Nov 29th/30th) the weather was REALLY cold (we recorded -7) and brought the barrels into the cellar (after they had formed some ice!) where it was about +9. Most of the barrels still jelled. 

Over 2 weeks after pressing I was worried that it was all taking so long. There was obviously some lovely clear liquid around and I decided to try getting it off. I siphoned some from the top - jelly lumps came out of the tap at the bottom - and have strained a lot through muslin. I now have 30 litres of lovely clear juice in my fermentation barrel under airlock.

Questions: 

- Would the jelly have compacted up if I had left it longer?

- WHY did so much jelly form?

- I had added PME (1ml per 30litres, from a Vigo keeving kit) after pressing. Would it have been fine without? 

- I am using 30l Spiedel plastic fermentation barrels - and they are not transparent enough to see through. All the photos I can find online show glass. Would it have helped if I had used a demi-john for a small batch?

- What is the best temperature now for the slow fermentation?

Thanks

Jil

[Andrew Lea]

There are two phases to keeving. First is gellification. Second is rising of the cap by incipient fermentation. It sounds as if you racked after phase 1 but didn't wait for phase 2. You would have got greater yield had you done so. The point to rack is when the cap is well risen with bubbles (chapeau brun) but before it breaks fully through the cap (chapeau blanc). 

You got so much gel because you had lots of pectin in your juice. It might well have happened naturally without adding extra PME but you will never know. It is best to keeve in straight sided vessels to allow the cap to rise. If you must use those with a curved top, fill them well short of the constriction. If you shine a torch behind or through the side of the HDPE barrels you can see through well enough. The gel needs to be free to rise above the juice. The best temperature for fermentation is around 8 - 10 C. 

You should  find plenty of internet references to help you eg cidersupply.com and links therein, also Claude's  book and mine, and here http://www.cider.org.uk/keeving.html. If you bought enzyme from  Vigo  you should also have had full instructions. Not to mention the archives of this list which are invaluable. But if it is your first time keeving yes it is a bit scary! 

Andrew 

Wittenham Hill Cider Portal
www.cider.org.uk

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[jillm...@googlemail.com]

Thank you Andrew

That is really helpful. 

So - if I had been more patient the cap might have risen? - presumably the very low temperatures kept it all slow. What is the longest it might take to rise if it is cold? The gelling all started almost immediately.

Is there a particular kind of straight sided vessel you would suggest? We wondered about one of the straight sided 60l vessels but I opted for the 30's as they are liftable. But I would be happy to get a new vessel to start in next year then rack into the 30l vessels.

Our cellar is usually around the 10 degree mark in winter (depends a bit on outside temps but even in summer it doesn't go much above 13, and was only 8 last week when it was very cold outside) but I had thought I needed cooler temps for the gellification - so started with the barrels outside. Would it have been better to do it all in the cellar from the start?

I did try shining a torch through but even at night couldn't really seen transillumination - presumably (with hindsight) this was because it was all still gelled inside?

I have read your book (cover to cover) and read the vigo instructions. I will now look at Claude's book. And will read more for next year.

Jill

[Andrew Lea]

On 07/12/2016 09:29, jillmillar1 via Cider Workshop wrote:

> So - if I had been more patient the cap might have risen? - presumably
> the very low temperatures kept it all slow. What is the longest it might
> take to rise if it is cold? The gelling all started almost immediately.

The gelling is a simple enzymic / chemical reaction. It can happen in 24
hours. The lifting of the cap is quite different, since it involves wild
yeasts growing sufficiently to provide enough gas to float the cap. That
might take weeks.

> Is there a particular kind of straight sided vessel you would suggest?
> We wondered about one of the straight sided 60l vessels but I opted for
> the 30's as they are liftable. But I would be happy to get a new vessel
> to start in next year then rack into the 30l vessels.

I use the 60L straight sided Speidel tanks with the lift off caps (as in
my book p.94). Means I can get total access to everything. I keeve at
table height and then rack via gravity through the bottom tap to a tank
at a lower level. That keeved juice can then be pumped elsewhere if need
be. It suits my scale. YMMV.


> Our cellar is usually around the 10 degree mark in winter ..... but I had thought I

> needed cooler temps for the gellification - so started with the barrels
> outside. Would it have been better to do it all in the cellar from the
> start?

Probably yes.

> I did try shining a torch through but even at night couldn't really seen
> transillumination - presumably (with hindsight) this was because it was
> all still gelled inside?

Sometimes illuminating at a right angle works best. Yes if it's all
filled with gel, which is very common using added PME / CaCl2, there
will be no initial separation and you will see no boundary until the cap
starts to rise.

> I will now look at Claude's book.

I think Claude's book and mine are very complementary. Mine is a shorter
cover-to-cover read and somewhat UK focussed. Claude's is longer, more
North American focussed, and does go into much more detail than mine on
keeving and slow natural fermentation. Read both and you should be
pretty well set up ;-)

Andrew

--
near Oxford, UK

[Jill Millar]

Thanks again Andrew
That is great. I have ordered Claude’s book, and next year will feel much better informed. And will get a 60l straight sided barrel for starting in.
I now have a 30l barrel + a 1 gallon demi john fermenting (slowly I hope) in the cellar with the output of this year’s attempt.
In spite of doing it in a somewhat unconventional way it has been good fun and exciting. And I hope we might still get something interesting to drink next year from it. It feels very p[ositive to have the possibility of making something nice to drink from our lovely old orchard, instead of the very dry cider that we have made before
Jill

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[Claude Jolicoeur]

Le jeudi 8 décembre 2016 07:06:53 UTC-5, Jill Millar a écrit :

That is great. I have ordered Claude’s book, and next year will feel much better informed. And will get a 60l straight sided barrel for starting in.

Doesn't have to be straight sided - it may be wider at the top. But the opposite doesn't work as well.

See picture, this is my 130L pail and it works fine for keeving up to about 110L. There is a cover that fits nicely (not on the picture) and prevents some dirt to get in.
For smaller batches, I have a similar one that has a capacity of 68L
Claude

[Tony Lovering]

In the UK the craft beer people have started to use KEYKEGS. They are 30ltr plastic kegs with a bag inside and are single use. I pull the valve out of the top and then pull the bag through the hole and they are perfect for keeving. Best of all you get them for free from any craft  brewery!!! I have about 20 in the garage. 

[Andrew Lea]

I don't understand. How do you get the keeved juice out and away from the risen cap? Do you fit a tap to the bottom?

Andrew 

Wittenham Hill Cider Portal
www.cider.org.uk

On 8 Dec 2016, at 15:19, 'Tony Lovering' via Cider Workshop <cider-w...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

In the UK the craft beer people have started to use KEYKEGS. They are 30ltr plastic kegs with a bag inside and are single use. I pull the valve out of the top and then pull the bag through the hole and they are perfect for keeving. Best of all you get them for free from any craft  brewery!!! I have about 20 in the garage. 

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[Tony Lovering]

I just push a siphon through the cap. I tape a tube to a thin stick

Cheers

[Andrew Lea]

Do we know that the outer shell of a KeyKeg is food safe? In its original use, the shell only contacts propellant gas. AFAIR the liquid only contacts the inner metalised bag, not the shell walls. 

Andrew 

Wittenham Hill Cider Portal
www.cider.org.uk

[Tony Lovering]

The wall in contact with the cider is PET same as the drinks bottles so should be. Here is the spec sheet on them https://www.keykeg.com/uploads/files/EN%20-%20Technical%20Specifications.pdf.

It does say the following "All Materials in food contact are approved according regulations FDA 21 CFR 177.1520, EC 1935/2004 and EU 10/2011 or further amendments." But thats probably just the bag

[Andrew Lea]

I guess PET is inherently food safe so that should most likely be OK. 

Of course KeyKegs can themselves be used to dispense finished cider. I have seen it done in the US but not in the UK so far. 

Andrew 

Wittenham Hill Cider Portal
www.cider.org.uk

[Vince Wakefield]

If people want a pet keg to play with you can get a free sample from here http://www.petainershop.eu/pages/free-sample

 

Vince

[Tony Lovering]

Hogan's use key kegs. I like re use rather than recycle....

[David millward]

I too use these key kegs for keeving and fermentation, most micro brewers will happily let you have them, saves them the job of recycling, oversized bungs can be bought off the Internet and I fit a Spiedl air lock